31 Nazi Inventions That Changed the World

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The Pernkopf Atlas, or Topographic Anatomy of Man, is a book on human anatomy created by Eduard Pernkopf from the bodies of Jews, gays and Gypsies killed by the Nazi regime. The book is still considered the best guide to human anatomy ever produced, with copies currently costing a few thousand dollars. Although its superior quality cannot be questioned, the book’s findings came from the bodies of thousands of people killed, cut and dissected by the Nazis, generating a great ethical discussion of their use.

Eduard Pernkopf, an Austrian professor and physician, was an active supporter of Nazism and was led to occupy the Dean’s position of the University of Vienna’s medicine faculty, because of his contacts with Nazi politicians. Pernkopf fired all Jews’ colleges, including three Nobel Prizes, as soon as he took office.

In the first edition of the book, published in 1937, the signatures of the illustrators included swastikas, in addition to the two ray symbols of the SS Schutzstaffel, the paramilitary force of the Nazi Party. In 1939, a new Nazi government law determined that executed prisoner bodies should be immediately sent to the nearest anatomy department for research and teaching purposes. Pernkopf began receiving large numbers of bodies and worked 18 hours a day, dissecting corpses, while a team of artists created the images for future editions of the atlas.

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